Computing devices such as personal computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, cellular phones, and countless types of Internet-capable devices are increasingly prevalent in numerous aspects of modern life. Over time, the manner in which these devices are providing information to users is becoming more intelligent, more efficient, more intuitive, and/or less obtrusive.
The trend toward miniaturization of computing hardware, peripherals, as well as of sensors, detectors, and image and audio processors, among other technologies, has helped open up a field sometimes referred to as “wearable computing.” In the area of image and visual processing and production, in particular, it has become possible to consider wearable displays that place a very small image display element close enough to a wearer's eye(s) such that the displayed image fills or nearly fills the field of view, and appears as a normal sized image, such as might be displayed on a traditional image display device. The relevant technology may be referred to as “near-eye displays.”
Near-eye displays are fundamental components of wearable displays, also sometimes called “head-mountable displays” (HMDs). A head-mountable display places a graphic display or displays close to one or both eyes of a wearer. To generate the images on a display, a computer processing system can be used. Such displays can occupy a wearer's entire field of view, or occupy part of wearer's field of view. Further, head-mountable displays can be as small as a pair of glasses or as large as a helmet.
Emerging and anticipated uses of wearable displays include applications in which users interact in real time with an augmented or virtual reality. Such applications can be mission-critical or safety-critical, such as in a public safety or aviation setting. Nonetheless, often users must carry out complex and/or burdensome input procedures to perform desired computing functions. As a result, known methods for performing computing functions are often considered inconvenient, inefficient, and/or non-intuitive.